10-40: Not So Common Gulls with Amar Ayyash

Nate Swick (0:05)

Hello, and welcome to The American Birding Podcast from The American Birding Association. I'm Nate Swick. Fall is usually the season for strange bird phenomena of the not typical birds generally heading south variety, though that is certainly happening. We've talked a little about some of it here, namely the El Nino-driven push of southern hemisphere seabirds northward. Right after that discussion with Tyler Wenzel, funnily enough, a waved albatross showed up off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, so that stuff is still happening. But there's another movement going on in Western North America right now. This fall has seen a significant movement, one might even categorize it as an eruption of traditionally rocky mountain species showing up in the lowlands. On both sides of the Rockies, it should be noted. This is not by itself an abnormal occurrence. Because birds do this from time to time, most recently in 2022

So I hesitate to say it's a canary in a coal mine sort of situation. We just don't know enough about it. Asher Gorbett, an editor for the ABA's North American Birds, wrote all of this up in a recent field ornithology report that is available on the ABA website. The species that are perhaps the most prominent of this current suite of eruptive birds are Clark's Nutcrackers, Pinyon Jays and Lewis's Woodpecker. So Lewis and Clark, they're back. They're exploring new lands again in bird form. The Nutcrackers are particularly interesting and probably because they're so flashy and different, they've become sort of the spokesbirds of this current eruption. And they've been really all over the place. There's one, maybe two wandering around Iowa, birds just west of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. They've been in the Sky Islands of Southeastern Arizona, South Dakota, Minnesota, as far east as Eastern Wisconsin, quite close to Lake Michigan.

There were even an incredible 23 birds documented in the Oklahoma Panhandle in the last couple weeks. Then they've gone west as well, best evidenced by a truly wild pelagic record of Clark's Nutcracker, 30 miles offshore in Mendocino County, California. There were even 31 in urban San Francisco. It is a Clark's Nutcracker season. Penny and Jay also moving around. There was a triple digit flock, 117 in San Diego County. They like to move in bunches. Lewis's Woodpecker has turned up in southern New Mexico, southern Arizona. That's kind of unusual for them. Those are the big three, but those are not the only birds. There are also Woodhouses, Scrub Jays, Mountain Chickadees, Pine Ciskin, Evening Grosbeak, lots of Red Breasted Nuthatches moving around. There have been Red Breasted Nuthatches reported in Mexico this fall, which is definitely a noteworthy sighting.

As I said, it is hard to know what is causing this, especially as it's happening right now. These are all classic eruptive species, but the numbers are definitely notable.

Drought, extreme heat, failure of Cone Crops and the high elevations. These are all plausible explanations. As with most things, it does take some time to get to the bottom of it, but birders can help just by documenting these birds. Not only noting them on your eBird checklist, but offering details.

Some of these species are not flagged, especially in large counties where they might be normal in one part of the county, but abnormal in another. You're a birder, you know when do you expect a Clark's Nutcracker and when it is an oddity. Make a note of it if it is an oddity. How you counted these numbers, what the birds were doing, and of course photos and recordings if you can get them. These are all important parts of the puzzle, the ongoing puzzle of this eruptive movement. So if you're in a place where these birds are possible to show up, which is frankly half the continent right now, be on the lookout and help monitor this phenomenon.

On the show this week, another phenomenon worth discussing, the prevalence of Common Gull in North America. There are some fascinating wrinkles and unlikely subspecies showing up in off-the-wall places. Gull Guy and author of The Gull GuideAmar Ayyash wrote a fascinating piece about this in the most recent North American Birds Journal. He joins me to talk about some gulls after this week's Rare Birds.

This is your Rare Bird Focus for the end of September 2026 Common Ringed Plover continues to break new ground across the continent since late August. The species has represented first records for Arizona, Wyoming, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, along with additional non-first records in Maine, North Carolina, Quebec, and Newfoundland. This week saw two more sightings on the East Coast, adding Common Ringed Plover to the state lists of New Jersey, where one was seen in Cape May County and Virginia, where a bird was documented in Northampton County. The fifth and sixth new Common Ringed Plover first records in the ABA area this year. Staying on the East Coast, a Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher in Dare County, North Carolina is a first record for that state, for my state. The species occurs in the ABA area, primarily in the Southwest, but there are several vagant records along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, which has hosted a couple dozen over the years, as well as records farther north into New York and New Jersey and even Atlantic Canada, between which this North Carolina records slips kind of nicely.